From the very first moment a visitor sets eyes on that page, they’re developing an impression of you, your products, and your company. They’re deciding, often in just a few seconds, if you can meet their needs… or if they would be better off spending their time looking elsewhere.

There’s no perfect way for a store’s homepage to say “we have what you are looking for.” Rather, stores should aim to customize their experience based on what works for the customers shopping in their industry. This can lead to a much better experience for everyone — shoppers and store owner alike.

Let’s explore why it’s worth taking your industry into consideration when you’re adding or customizing elements on your store’s homepage, and look at a few popular types of stores to see what they’ve done to speak specifically to their customers.

There’s a lot to think about when you create a new store. You can’t just throw something together in five minutes and call it a day — that’s a guaranteed recipe for disaster.

Navigation is one element of a store’s design that requires careful consideration, experimentation, and likely even future updates. You could create your navigation in five minutes based on what feels right… or you could use advice and insight to make smarter decisions.

Today, we’re going to explain how you can set up your store’s navigation to work well for shoppers. These tips should help you answer any questions you have so you can get every link placed properly (rather than quickly).

Let’s start by taking a closer look at why navigation options like menus matter so much in the first place.

The experience that shoppers have in your store can vary from good to bad to somewhere in between. Provide a good experience and they’re more likely to make a purchase; provide a bad one and you’ll probably never see them again.

There’s no single thing that creates good user experience (commonly called UX). There are some common items that probably spring to mind: easy-to-use navigation, clean design, helpful site search, and so on… but ensuring quality UX doesn’t stop at the shopping cart.

Believe it or not, your choice of payment gateway, and how that gateway and its options are presented on your store, can have a big impact on the experience of your shoppers. Choose well and you’ll have more customers; choose poorly and… well, you can guess.

Let’s take a look at how your payment gateway can change the experiences your customers have on your store, and what you can do to lean more in the direction of “good” than “bad.”